


Bedlam

by LordGrimwing



Series: No Home Stories [12]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Mental Instability, bedlam - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 04:03:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12645720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordGrimwing/pseuds/LordGrimwing
Summary: All his life, Jazz has wanted to help bots suffering from mental instability. Their needs call to him in a way no one else's does.





	Bedlam

[Recommendation for reassignment: Jazz has shown a determination and dedication to patients far beyond most mechs of his position (for a full listing of these acts, please look in the attached medical reports). He possesses an empathetic and calming spark that would make him a valuable addition at any institution. I strongly urge you to accept his application for transfer to Bethlehem Institution. Jazz will be a shinning star among your employees and a compassionate spark to the afflicted. Dr. Sawtooth]      
  
  
    "New transfer?" The brawny mech asked, words echoing in the silence.  
    "Yep." Jazz chirped, craning his neck back to look at the other face.  
    "Oh." The mech didn't sound too pleased. Jazz wasn't all that surprised: mechs working in an asylum were known for being big and tough. Jazz, well, Jazz sure didn't look the part. "I guess I should give you a tour of the ward you're working in then." He trudged off, not checking if the little bot followed.  
    Energy buzzed through Jazz's circuits. He'd wanted to get a position at Bethlehem Institution for the longest time and thanks to a data pad full of glowing reports form doctors he'd worked under the bots in charged finally let him in. Jazz knew it was a little strange, been told so by each of his bosses and co-workers, but this kind of work had called to him for ages. Back in the emergency facility, Jazz always volunteered to take the 'crazies', the walk-in's that just weren't all there. Of course, they often were just boosted out of their processors. Some walk-in's really were off though and Jazz remembered each one he helped. A ward manager (not Jazz's. A Vossian who worked in a prison) once told Jazz it had to do with his spark frequency, that it resonated in a way most bots' didn't. There'd been a lot of Primelism mixed in to it, Jazz leaned more Vector Sigmian personally, but he liked the idea.  
    "Nubes work on the fourth floor most of the time." The brawny guide, who lacked a name plate and had yet in introduce himself, droned. "Nothing really dangerous stays on that floor. Nothing an ER bot couldn't handle at least." He slid open the lift's door. Looked like Bethlehem hadn't been remodeled in centuries. "It's the good behavior floor. Quiet. Good behavior gets patients there for a few days." The lift rumpled down. "Your manager's office is on the ninth floor though. You'll have to deliver report, files, what-not in person. Assistants living quarters are ground level. Your stuff should arrive in before tonight." The lift passed the forth floor.  
    "Uh, wasn't that the stop?" Jazz piped up.  
    "Wha'? Oh. No, got to check in with your manager first."  
    "Oh." Jazz kept his smile, visor hiding his optics.   
    The lift opened. Brawn (Jazz's new name for his guide) assured them out. "This way." He muttered, taking the lead. This floor wasn't so quiet. Down dark passages, Jazz heard muttering, whining, the grind of metal on metal. Sounds of the mentally tormented. Jazz's spark pulsed. These were bots he could help.  
    "Help."   
    For a moment, Jazz didn't register the breathless word. "Did you hear that?" He asked Brawn.  
    "Hu?"  
    "Someone just called for help."  
    Brawn grumbled, glanced down a passageway, and huffed. "Again. I told Hardhelm to tie it up this time." Jazz hurried after the mech marching down the corridor.  
    Half way down stood a trembling bot. One servo against the wall, the unpainted mech shuffled forward. "Please." He called out weakly. "There's been some mistake: I shouldn't be here." His free hand started tugging at what appeared to be a mesh harness strapped over his shoulders and chest. "I figured out who did  _it._  I shouldn't be here."  
    "Stop where you are." Brawn ordered in a harsher voice then Jazz would've suggested.  
    The grey mech, obviously a patient, halted, blue optics beseeching. "Please. I need to find him. Stop him before-"  
    "Before what, hu?" Brawn loomed over the agitated bot.   
    "Before . . . Before . . ." The mech struggled, optics flicking around.  
    The large mech snorted. "Exactly. Can't stop whoever  _he_  is if you can't even figure out what's going to happen."  
    "I . . ." Confusion radiated from the mech.   
    "Now turn around."  
    The bot didn't, gaze fixing on Jazz. He felt . . . unsettled looking onto those optics.  
    "I said TURN AROUND!" Brawn yelled, pushing the mech back down the hall.  
    "Hey." Jazz interjected. "He's just-"  
    But no one was listening to him. Brawn continued pushing the stumbling bot back toward a cell. Unsure what else to do, Jazz followed. They stopped in front cell, its door pushed open, tail-tell lock picking scratches around the key hole. This really was an old facility. Another grey bot stood within. Back against the wall, he watched warily as Brawn shoved the escapee over to a chain anchored to the wall. Jazz and the second grey mech stared as Brawn hooked the now weakly resisting mech's harness onto one of the links, giving him just enough slack to walk a few steps but not reach the door or other mech. it wasn't a big cell.   
    "And stay there." Brawn slammed the door behind him, then continued on as though nothing happened.  
  
  
    "Ah, Jazz. The boss said to expect you sometime today." The ward manager stepped around his desk, offering Jazz a brief hand shake. "Good to see you made it down here still possessing all your mental faculties; not many do. Ha! Bit of Bedlam humor there."  
    Jazz blinked, visor dimming. "Bedlam?"  
    "Easier than Bethlehem Institution: Asylum for the Mentally Unstable. Wouldn't you agree? Bit of a mouth-full in my opinion. We say Bedlam around here." The yet unnamed manager returned to his seat.   
    "20/25 got out of the cell again." Jazz's guide interjected into the momentary quiet.   
    "Really? Rats, I'd hoped some of our treatment was finally getting through to him. Oh well." The bot waved his hand in a dismissing manor. "You can return to your station Backlash. I'll instructed Jazz from here."   
    Backlash--that was his name!--left without a word.  
    "Let's see. I should have your file around here somewhere." The bot rifled through his pads. "The boss said I might want to put you somewhere a little more active than fourth floor."  
    Jazz waited silently for a moment. "What's wrong with 20/25?"  
    "Hm?" The mech looked up from what apparently was Jazz's file. "20/25? Oh! One of our sadder cases. Modded with a PEC, that's Processing Enhancement Computer, back before we realized the danger."  
    "Really?" Jazz was surprised. "He didn't look that old."  
    "He isn't." The manager agreed. "Brought on-line with it. Started working for Praxian Civil Defense almost before his plating cooled. Amazing officer, I heard. Stopped a lot of bad things from happening. You know the side effect of PEC, don't you Jazz?"  
    "Yes." Mental deterioration, fixation, fits, black outs, mood swings. A PEC'ed bot found his way to the ER during a fit. He hadn't lasted long.  
    "Then you can probably guess what happened, given his line of work. Suffice it to say he seems to spend a lot of time thinking about a case he couldn't solve. Praxis sent him here after a while, for treatment. They don't expect him coming back. We've actually got and handful of PEC down here." The mech returned to Jazz's fine for a moment before looking up again. "You're Vector Sigmian?"  
    "Yeah, but it doesn't affect my work."  
    A frown crossed the manager's face. "And you--mm--visor is for--"  
    "It's for modesty."   
    "Hm. I see." He made a quick note in the margin.  
    "None of this will affect my work." Jazz repeated.  
    "I'm sure it won't. We just have a few Unicronums and I think it'd be best for you to not work on their level. Nothing personal." The mech, Jazz still didn't know his boss's name, handed him a small data pad. "I have you working on this floor for now. Your duties are on here. Work starts tomorrow at four, so I suggest you head to your room, study this, and get a good night's sleep."   
    With that, Jazz was dismissed.  
  
  
    After a week, four am still came early. Jazz barely made it to the staff room before the shift manager, who Jazz finally found out was called Datum, briefed the therapists, doctors, and assistants on what happened in the prior hours, the days scheduled, and what not. Jazz actually didn't get to do much with said patients. Datum said a doctor would probably notice him in a couple of weeks and start bossing him around but for now, Jazz cleaned and made sure none of the patients got out of their cells.  
    As the second week dragged on, Jazz found himself pausing outside 20/25's cell every time he passed by. The two bots weren't always there, sometimes it was just 20/25, sometimes it was the other one, sometimes the cell stood empty. Each time 20/25 was absent, Jazz checked his charts. Next time the PEC'ed mech got out, Jazz hoped hoped he could get him back in the cell without anyone else getting involved. It's not that the other employees were mean (well, some of them were), Jazz just felt 20/25 might respond better to a softer approach. It'd always worked in the ER.  
    20/25 wasn't there today. The schedule proclaimed him to be in a new kind of therapy, wouldn't be back until late tonight. Jazz glanced in the cell. 15/25, 20/25's cell mate, was in the position he usually took up when alone. 15/25 crouched in a corner, chain pulled taught as he pushed against the wall. His hands, cuffed together and bound into fists (to stop him from pulling off his own plating or yanking out wires, according to one of the doctors), strained to cover the sides of his helm where frayed wires sparked inside what used to be glass covers. 15/25 was usually silent or making a nearly inaudible whine and Jazz usually paid him little attention. 20/25 was the one who stair back at him, mimic his face and hand motions, not 15/25.          
    Today was different though. Jazz had just turned to leave the solitary 15/25 to himself when the bot spoke.  
    "Where is he?" The voice was young, much younger than Jazz would have expected to hear in Bedlam.  
    Jazz turned back to the cell but didn't approach, just knelt down and replied. "Who?  
    15/25 looked at the other side of the cell. "Prowl. Someone took him away."  
    Perhaps that was 20/25's name, Jazz's files used number for all the patients. He'd soon realized names didn't mean much down here, even among the employees. "He's with a doctor. We're trying to fix him."  
    "Fix him?" 15/25's pale optics narrowed. "Prowl's not broken."  
    Jazz wished he'd read 15/25 file summary. "His frame isn't, you're right, but he isn't fine in his head all the time."  
    15/25 lowered his hands, reviling the exposed wires. "You're going to kill us." He stated.  
    Jazz's visor wasn't enough to hide his shock at the accusation. "NO! We want-- _I want_ \--to help you."  
    "No." 15/25 insisted. "Prowl said after they get what they want from us, they'll come one day and they'll say they're going to help us. Then, they're going to kill us." the bot stood. "They're going to kill us!" The wires sticking out of his helm snapped with energy. "They're going to kill me!" 15/25 lurched forward, bound hands reaching toward Jazz as he threw himself into the harness chained to him, reaching desperately for the bars.  
    Jazz jumped back.  
    "Don't let them kill me!" 15/25 screeched. "Don't let them kill me!"  
    "No one's going to hurt you!" Jazz raised his voice, a part of him glad there weren't any other cells down this hallways. "We just want to help!"  
    15/25 stopped. "I won't let them kill me." He shrank back against the wall, hands scrambling over his own plating. "They won't get to." The edge of his handcuffs caught the lip of his chest plate. Jazz froze as the distraught mech slowly, surely painfully, pulled open his own chassis. 15/25 plunged his bound hands into the gap.  
    "Stop!" Jazz shouted. He sprang forward, slamming his key into the lock and forcing the door open as the unstable bot yanked his hands, bundles of wires and tubes wrapped around them. Jazz dashed to the screaming bot, hanging from the harness as his legs kicked out spasmodically, energon leaking from tubing still tangled between his hands.    
    "Don't die. Sigma, he shouldn't die." Hefting the slightly larger frame onto his shoulder, Jazz undid the clasps on the harness, lying 15/25 flat on his back. Deftly removing the mangled chest plate, Jazz slipped his medical kit out of a leg compartment (ten years working in the ER drilled home the need to be prepared) and, hands almost flying, started reconnecting wires and patching tubing.   
    15/25's screams intensified as Jazz's hands manipulated his internals. Wincing at the terror filled cries, Jazz tried to pushing every calm thought he could muster at the mech. If there was any truth to that Primelist's words about sensing sparks, Jazz prayed 15/25 would relax. And slowly, whether because of spark frequencies or energy loss, the bot quieted, his legs stilled, the head wires stopped sparking. Jazz didn't stop his onslaught of clam and happy thoughts.   
  
  
    Despite Jazz's insistence that 15/25 needed to be seen by an actual doctor (not one of the bots employed by Bedlam), Datum left the unstable mech in the cell, saying he had full confidence in Jazz's abilities ("Why! Ten years is longer than some of the bots down here have gone without a malpractice suet!"). So it was a couple of days before Jazz found 20/25 alone in the cell.  
    20/25, or Prowl if 15/25 could be believed, sat, unharnessed, on the floor or his cell, fixated on a three dimensional puzzle cube. Jazz stopped before the bars.   
    "20/25." The bot ignored him, busy rolling a tiny ball along a wavy track.  
    "Prowl?" Still nothing.  
    Jazz took a deep breath, glanced a round (an odd feeling urged him not to let others see this), straightened his back and snapped. "Officer Prowl!"  
    Instantly, 20/25 was up, body at rigid attention, left arm raised in salute. "Sir." He rasped.  
    Jazz threw a quick return salute. "Officer Prowl, why did you tell 15/25 someone is planning to kill him?" As confused and removed as Prowl often seemed, Jazz couldn't see him telling his cell mate such things without cause.  
    "Sir, I believe it to be true. After a thorough investigation into Bethlehem's finances and patient histories, I discovered disturbing trends that all pointed to a single truth. I relayed my findings to Agent Red Alert believing he could get the findings to Iacon Civil Defense and from thence to you Sir." Prowl's words were crisp, nothing like the breathless tones he used they first met. Jazz stared at the mech, speechless. After a moment, 20/25 went slack, sinking to the floor and turning back to his puzzle.  
    Shocked, somehow very shook, Jazz stumbled away. Last night, he'd looked through 15/25's file summary. The mech, young as he was, used to work as an intelligence agent for Iacon Civil Defense.  
  
  
    Some days later, Jazz pulled Datum aside after the beginning of shift briefing.   
    "Look," Datum started, "if this is about not getting to work with a doctor, I'm sorry but there's not much I can do. I did tell them about the amazing job you did handling 15/25 last week. Truly stupendous work."  
    "No, no." Jazz interjected. "I just have a question."  
    "Shoot."  
    Jazz swallowed. "I was doing my rounds yesterday and noticed 12/25 and 3/25 weren't in their cells. I check the charts but they weren't scheduled for anything and when I called a doctor, he said not to worry about it." Under his visor, Jazz watched Datum's optics flick around the room.   
    "So?"  
    "What happened to them?"  
    "Well, truth is, their condition deteriorated to such an extent that the boss decided it was best to just let them slip away into the All Spark." Datum nodded sagely. "It was the kindest thing we could do for them."  
  
  
[Personal Correspondence: Sawtooth, I cannot thank you enough for recommending Jazz to Bethlehem Institution. As you predicted his desire to aid the afflicted sets him apart from everyone on his floor. While I have not worked with him personally, his ward manager is full of glowing reports. And, his ER training is something we sorely needed. Already he has singlehandedly saved the life of a patient after an attempted suicide. Truly a most remarkable mech. He indeed has a special spark. A very special, unique, spark. Once again, thank you for sending him my way. Dr. Pharma]   

**Author's Note:**

> Red Alert is 15/25
> 
> Inspired by the podcast 'Lore'


End file.
